Top 5 free-agent D to target: Andersson is the prize, and the right-shot well is shallow behind him
Grier has made the blue line his project, and he is not done. Good. But here is the thing the rankings bury under the headliners: the 2026 right-shot free-agent class is shallow, and it got shallower this week. Darren Raddysh signed in Toronto (eight years, $8.5M). Connor Murphy, the exact cheap shutdown righty a team like this covets, re-signed in Edmonton on June 22 (five years, $4.1M) before he ever hit the market. What is left is one genuine top-pair prize, one short-term specialist, and a thin tail of depth and fliers.
So treat this as a ranked board of the right shots actually available (right shot is the need; the left side is jammed with Orlov, Dickinson, Cagnoni, Mukhamadullin, and Sahlin Wallenius). Costs are projections, and I have marked which are firm versus my own estimate.
| Target | Age | Projected cost | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Rasmus Andersson (VGK) | 29 | 6yr, about $8.75M | Top-pair, the prize |
| 2. John Carlson (ANA) | 36 | 2yr, about $10-13M | PP1 QB, bridge |
| 3. Jacob Trouba (ANA) | 32 | 1-2yr, about $3-4M (est.) | Physical top-4 / depth |
| 4. Nick Blankenburg (COL) | 28 | about $4M | Mobile depth, the young one |
| 5. Brent Burns (UFA) | 41 | 1yr, about $1-3M (est.) | Veteran shot / flier |
1. Rasmus Andersson, the only swing that actually moves the needle
If the Sharks sign one defenseman this summer, it should be this one. Andersson is the rarest thing on the market: a top-pairing right shot still on the right side of 30. He played his way from Calgary to Vegas at the deadline, he eats minutes in all situations, and at 29 he would still be in his prime when the contention window opens in 2028-29. He is the exact profile, the exact position, and the exact age range Grier keeps describing.
The cost is the catch. The Athletic projects six years at $8.74M; Evolving Hockey models seven years at $9.0M and the analyst's own verdict was blunt: "that's top-pair money, and I would just not pay that." That is the tension in one line. He is worth the most of anyone here, and he will cost the most, and the term runs into his mid-30s. My read: this is precisely where being a floor team is a weapon. You have to spend roughly $21M to reach the floor anyway, the right shot is the one thing you cannot grow internally fast enough, and a high AAV does not hurt a team with this much room. Chase him hard. If you can hold the term to five or six years rather than seven, even at a premium AAV, do it. This is the one free agent worth a real overpay.
2. John Carlson, the power play in a bottle
If they would rather not commit six years to a 29-year-old, Carlson is the other end of the barbell: pay up on AAV, commit almost nothing in term. Daily Faceoff put it cleanly this week, that with Raddysh gone, Carlson "will get handsomely paid, probably not in term, but in AAV on a short-term contract." Pierre LeBrun has his ask at around two years and $10M, with a reported preference to stay in the East. He is 36 and purely a power-play quarterback at this stage, which happens to be the Sharks' single most fixable weakness (20.9 percent, 17th, with the chances already there). Two years gets him off the books exactly as the young defense matures, and the premium AAV the floor makes painless is also the weapon to pry an Eastern-leaning veteran out West. The risk is real: age, no five-on-five shutdown value, and he may simply prefer Boston or the Rangers. But as a two-year PP1 rental, he is the cleanest specialist on the board.
Andersson or Carlson, not both. Two veteran right shots at roughly $20M-plus combined would be redundant and excessive even for a floor team. The real choice is philosophical: Andersson is the long-term top-pair answer that lives into the window; Carlson is the short-term PP fix that is gone before it. Pick one as the headline addition.
3. Jacob Trouba, the cheap physical insurance
Now the tail. Trouba is a former Rangers captain on a steep decline, traded to Anaheim, coming off an $8M cap hit he will not sniff again. The analytics are not kind and the foot speed is going, but he is a big, mean, right-shot body who can still kill penalties and play a sheltered third pair, and he will sign for a fraction of his old number. As a one-or-two-year, $3-4M depth piece behind Kesselring, he is fine. As anything more than that, he is a trap. File him under insurance, not solution.
4. Nick Blankenburg, the one who fits the age sermon
The most on-message name on the list after Andersson. Blankenburg is 28, a mobile, smart right shot who can play either side, and CapWages projects him around $4M. He is not a top-four lock and he is undersized, but he skates, moves pucks, and is exactly the "young, controllable, room to grow" profile Grier preaches. If the plan is one big swing plus a cheaper complementary piece, Blankenburg is the complementary piece I would prefer over the aging names, because he could still be useful when the team is good rather than expiring just as it gets there.
5. Brent Burns, the sentimental flier
The honest fifth name in a thin class. Burns is 41, which is the opposite of the age lean, so this is a one-year-only conversation. But the shot is still a cannon, the leadership is real, he can quarterback a second power-play unit in a pinch, and there is the obvious San Jose history. If Andersson and Carlson both go elsewhere and the Sharks need a veteran right-shot stopgap to get to the floor without blocking a kid long-term, a one-year Burns deal is a defensible last resort. Just do not pretend it is a plan.
The honest conclusion
This class has one needle-mover (Andersson), one specialist (Carlson), and a tail of depth. That is not a knock on the targets; it is the reality of a weak right-shot market that the rankings themselves call "not the strongest." Which leads to the real strategic point: the Sharks' second top-four right shot almost certainly has to come by trade, not free agency. A younger, controllable righty acquired with the pick-and-prospect surplus fits Grier's stated age range and the discipline better than reaching into this shallow pool for a second veteran. So the plan I would run: sign one headliner here (Andersson if you will pay him, Carlson if you will not commit the term), add one cheap complementary righty (Blankenburg first choice, Trouba or Burns as fallbacks), re-sign your own in Kesselring and Desharnais, and hunt the trade market for the piece free agency cannot give you.
Andersson is the one free agent worth a real overpay, the right position, the right age, and the floor money has to go somewhere. Pay him, but fight to cap the term at five or six years. If the term scares you off, pivot to Carlson on two years and spend the saved term in a trade. Either way, the depth tier (Trouba, Blankenburg, Burns) is a complementary signing, never the main event, and the second top-four righty is a trade, not a free agent. The market is thin; do not let it talk you into paying a role player like a solution.
Sources: contract projections from The Athletic's free-agent big board 4.0 (Andersson 6yr/$8.74M), Evolving Hockey (Andersson 7yr/$9.0M), and CapWages (Blankenburg about $4M); Carlson's structure and ask via Daily Faceoff and Pierre LeBrun; ages, handedness, and prior salaries via Spotrac, PuckPedia, and the NHL big boards (all five are right shots). Murphy (Edmonton, 5yr/$4.1M, June 22) and Raddysh (Toronto, 8yr/$8.5M) are already off the board. Trouba and Burns cost lines are my estimates, labeled as such; all figures are projections, not signings.
